1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the providing of search assistance to users that submit queries to search engines.
2. Background
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help users find information stored on a computer system. Search engines help to minimize the amount of time required to find information as well as the amount of information that must be reviewed by a user of the search engine. The most public, visible form of a search engine is an Internet search engine that searches for information on the World Wide Web.
A conventional Internet search engine is configured to receive a user query in the form of one or more search terms and to identify relevant web pages based on the query. The user typically enters the query into a search query entry box. A list of the identified web pages, typically ordered from most relevant to least relevant, is then presented to the user via the user's web browser.
When using a search engine to identify web pages relevant to a topic, it is important for the user to determine query terms that will result in web pages of interest to be identified. Some search engines are configured to suggest search queries to the user. For instance, a search engine may be configured to suggest search queries to the user based on the query the user is entering in the search query entry box. As the user types characters into the search query entry box, the search engine receives the characters, and generates a list of suggested search queries based on the received characters. The list of suggested search queries is displayed to the user. For example, if the user types the characters “yah” in the search query entry box, the search engine may suggest the following search queries to the user: “yahoo,” “yahoo mail,” “yahoo messenger,” “yahoo games,” and “yahoo chat.” As a result, the user may select one of the suggested search queries to have the search engine perform a search on the selected query rather than having to complete typing of the query in the search query entry box. The search engine will typically return a search results page that lists search results for the selected suggested search query. The user may browse any documents listed in the search results page if any of the documents are of interest to the user.
However, while such a search query suggestion configuration may provide some search assistance to the user, the user still must navigate through multiple web pages associated with the search engine before being enabled to browse any documents of interest, resulting in wasted time and effort by the user.